U.S. District Judge Reed O\u2019Connor ruled on July 11 that the lawsuit failed to prove the jail has any de facto policy that lets drugs in.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile Plaintiffs generally allege that jail officers aided inmates with smuggling drugs into the jail, they provide only three specific instances where jail officers smuggled contraband,\u201d O\u2019Connor wrote. \u201cPlaintiffs also claim that Tarrant County allowed Keefe employees to smuggle drugs, but they provide only one instance of a Keefe employee doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the lawsuit, one jailer failed to search someone\u2019s bag and allowed prohibited items into the jail. Another brought in restricted medication, and another brought \u201cunauthorized cleaning chemicals into the facility\u201d and \u201cgave these chemicals to an inmate.\u201d<\/p>\n
These examples \u2014 and several other drug-related deaths over an eight-year span \u2014 were not numerous enough or similar enough to Wormley\u2019s case to show a pattern of wrongdoing, O\u2019Connor wrote.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Connor also released the Keefe commissary company from the lawsuit. They had no way of knowing Lyles would smuggle drugs and were not negligent in hiring her, he decided.<\/p>\n
Lyles pleaded guilty to manufacturing or delivering a controlled substance last year and was placed on 10 years of probation, county criminal documents show.<\/p>\n
Cassandra Johnson, Wormley\u2019s mother, has become a frequent speaker at Tarrant County Commissioners Court meetings in Fort Worth, as well as at the Texas Commission on Jail Standards in Austin. She has demanded answers for why her son died and why his death\u00a0never got a proper outside investigation<\/a>.<\/p>\n More than 20 deaths in Tarrant County Jail custody, including Wormley\u2019s,\u00a0never got the third-party investigations required by the state.<\/a>\u00a0The Tarrant County Sheriff\u2019s Office assigned the investigations to the Fort Worth Police Department, which never did any investigating, police confirmed last year. They just reviewed the sheriff\u2019s own internal investigations.<\/p>\n Tarrant County has spent more than $4.3 million in legal payouts since 2022, in cases involving deaths and allegations of abuse and neglect in the jail.<\/p>\n Earlier this month, O\u2019Connor\u00a0also dismissed a lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0against the doctor in charge of jail medical care in 2020. The lawsuit alleged he failed to care for Chasity Congious, a woman who gave birth alone in her cell and lost her baby Zenorah 10 days later.<\/p>\n Congious\u00a0received a $1.2 million settlement<\/a>\u00a0last year in a lawsuit against Tarrant County as a whole. It is the\u00a0largest settlement in county history<\/a>.<\/p>\n In December, the county\u00a0agreed to pay $775,000<\/a>\u00a0to settle a lawsuit from the family of Kelly Masten, a woman with intellectual disabilities and a severe seizure disorder. The lawsuit alleged jailers let Masten injure herself during repeated seizures in an unpadded cell. She survived, but she had to be placed in a medically induced coma once she was released from jail and spent weeks in the hospital, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n Another significant jail death lawsuit is still pending. Anthony Johnson Jr.\u2019s family sued last year after the Marine veteran\u00a0died of asphyxiation in custody<\/a>. Jailers had pepper sprayed him, and one knelt on his back for more than a minute while Johnson said he couldn\u2019t breathe, video of the incident shows.<\/p>\n O\u2019Connor, who is also presiding over that lawsuit,\u00a0dismissed claims against Tarrant County in February<\/a>. Similar to the Wormley lawsuit, he ruled the Johnson family\u2019s lawsuit failed to prove that county policies and procedures led to Johnson\u2019s death.<\/p>\n The Johnson lawsuit continues against individual jailers accused of involvement in Johnson\u2019s death, including two who have been indicted for murder.<\/p>\n \n\tRelated\n<\/p>\n Fort Worth Report is certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative<\/a> for adhering to standards for ethical journalism.<\/p>\n Republish This Story<\/p>\n
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